


High Drive

by WarnerHedgehog



Category: Jeremy Clarkson - Fandom, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Cars, Clarkson - Freeform, Fictitious reviews, Fraud, Gen, Hammond - Freeform, Hooker, Pimento, Reviews, Skoat, courtesan - Freeform, magazine, may - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7145444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarnerHedgehog/pseuds/WarnerHedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parody of a motoring review column. I hope I've captured Clarkson's general tone.<br/>There are no apologies. Not one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Drive

Jez Clacton presents:

High Drive

The automotive review

Hello readers and vehicle buffs alike. The petrolhead scene has been a bit crazy over the past few weeks as you well know. Ferdinand have radically redesigned the 999 so that it looks exactly like it used to, Viggne have gone bust and thus leaving accountants without their favourite European roadsters and the cheeky little Vietnamese giant-killer Weedoo have started to design what look to be promisingly good cars for the British market. But for now we have nothing of theirs too look at right now, so we start instead with those American funsters Fraud and their all-new model the 'Courtesan', successor to the 1980's classic 'the Hooker'. Based on the wheelbase of the moon, this thing is utterly enormous. Its not small on power either, sporting a V12 12 litre monster of an engine this car has more oomph than a battleship. Unfortunately for them though power isn't everything: they didn't exactly put much effort into the interior. The whole thing feels like it was put together by a plastic bucket salesman from Dudley; in fact they seem to have gone for the cheapest fittings they could find. It all reeks of cost cutting and accountancy of the worst kind. The speedo and the rev counter are straight out of last year's Partie and the vents seem to have been nicked from a church. To sum up, this is basically the perfect muscle car: full of power and designed by meatheads. There's similar things on the market: The Building FireCross, Avoid's Rammer and if you're feeling a little light-headed you could go for Fraud's famous high-powered load of old tripe, the Stallion. All of them are basically the same: they make a lot of noise, devour petrol at a phenomenal rate and look pretty as they go the short distance between fill ups.

Next up is the insane Italian group Fercheini. The new F3 is essentially high speed track day car that looks like a supermodel but handles like a barge. If you have a moment of daftness and decide to take this out on the road, your back will be paying for weeks. Your bank balance however will be worse off and will be hurting for years as it isn't exactly cheap: At £300,000 it'll drain your finances in an instant. To make matters worse it gets through a gallon in just 20 miles. And as if that wasn't enough, just to rub a little salt in the exquisitely luxurious wound, if you happen to accidently blow a tyre you can expect to be on the sharp end of a £500 bill. This is most certainly not a car for the faint of heart and the light on money. Insurance is another matter entirely: I tried to get a quote from Second Straight, and after telling them the make and model and subsequently describing the car, they said that they wouldn't touch it with a 60 foot pole. After cursing them I went to Anova, Brigadier Direct, Winston and Better Than: they all basically said no way. So what we have here is an exceedingly expensive waste of garage space, or something to put on a plinth. If you've got that sort of money, you're better off with a Leopard Q-Type or maybe a Pine Martin Victor. At least you'll get one of them out on the road.

The Laemon L2, is the replacement for the elderly L1.5. This nippy yet practical French people carrier is a nicely considered blast to drive. I took it out for a spin on the test track earlier today and just didn't want to stop. The handling is perfect because of the intelligent suspension, which is so clever it could outsmart and outthink the actual idea of utter genius and although the engine is a mere 1.5 litre, it has quite a surprising turn of speed. I'll admit that the dashboard could be a bit better: there are lots of little flashing lights that don't seem to mean anything, and some of the trim seems a tad on the cheap side, but that's no big deal in today's market. Another odd little feature that no-one here understands is a small glittery button on the dash that's labelled 'Dessert Spoon'. I have no idea what it does and I really don't care to find out. Doctor Sedate took it out for a little tour of the south and was quite impressed. The sat-nav worked so perfectly that even he failed to get lost. We both think the steering feels 'a little odd' but according to my fuzzy haired colleague, you soon get used to it, and July says there's a little bleepy thing that has a go at you if you go too far above the speed limit. As a people carrier it should be capable of carting a small army about and it is. Jim shoehorned his family in and took them to see the attractions in Dorset and there was no discomfort reported by anyone. This gets the High Drive 'thumbs up'.

The next subject is the Toysan QT P13. Based on the Decree Kodiak, this little Japanese compact city car is practically indestructible and super cheap but performs like a concussed goose. It was created by Toysan's infamous FlannelMonkey design team apparently after a heavy night on the herbal roll-ups. According to industry insiders, the design brief was to build something to withstand the rough and tumble of Osaka's streets and it certainly fulfills that. The problem is that although the ride is comfortable as a bed made entirely from pure distilled comfort, it steers like a fully loaded oil tanker. This is exactly what the word 'understeer' was coined for. It's like they tried very hard, but somehow missed the boat each time. It's not as if there aren't enough gadgets in the cockpit: there's temperature, pressure, oil and green gauges, there's a world time thingy and for some reason they've put in a pea in alcohol in a tube so you can see how much the suspension rolls. Theres a semi-holographic girl with an incomprehensible accent who serves as the sat nav and tells you how lost you are, as well as automatic lights and wipers for the thinking intolerant. Theres even an ashtray that actually tells you to give up the fags. Unfortunately, for all this technical wizardry and automotive cleverness, it just feels like it's been chucked together in a hurry because the deadline was approaching like a hungry shark. All in all, for all their goodwill and effort in trying to get it right, this just doesn't work and for only 200 quid more you'd be much better off going for the wonderful Folkbus Soccer, which has all the same features and is far better in terms of build quality and you even get a free biro.

Finally we come to the Skoat Pimento. This cutsey little European hatchback looks like an intergalactic space rabbit, but is reliable and very cheap. It's a strangely roomy little runaround, is terrific value and surprisingly fun on the track. In terms of economy, you'll only be at the filling station once every 80 million miles. It's surprisingly roomy too: I reckon you could get a herd of gazelle in the boot with enough space left over for an entire family of wombats. My Full Speed colleague Ricky Girmend took our review car out for a spin around Bridlington and he says that after that little jaunt he's hooked and wants to buy one. We've tried hard to think about the negatives though and we've identified a few: The inbuilt Sat-Nav has the squeakiest voice we've ever heard and according to the Gerbil there's no way on earth to change it, but then he's as technically minded as a demented stoat. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but with a hatchback you have to ask yourself 'is that really important'? The answer of course is 'nope'. The colours that are available are bit on the gaudy side and the console layout could easily be called 'a mite austere', but these are minor niggles. This is a wonderful little car for pootling about in, so good in fact that Gerbil has gone and ordered one. A pink one. With eyelashes. 

So there you go, some sensible advice from the Top Speed posse. Safe driving folks and I'll bother you next week with more gas-guzzling gibberish.


End file.
